the still point of the turning world
by miabicicletta
Summary: Mycroft Holmes knows his brother's children are extraordinary, though not for the reasons other people find them to be.


Takes place somewhere around the early part of Chapter 2 of and still, it moves. Title comes from "Four Quartets," by T.S. Eliot, a snippet of which can be found below.

* * *

The British Government is deeply amused.

Pressed against her uncle's side on the sofa, Anna Hooper Holmes chatters over a well-informed (if cliché and utterly infantile) animated film exploring the various astronomical features of the Andromeda galaxy. His precocious niece is transfixed by the globular gases and radiant star clusters, and is keen to share the objects of her fascination with her favorite uncle.

_Favorite,_ Mycroft can hear his inner Sherlock snort. _By which you mean 'only.'_

"Stars are the light that comes from suns very far away." Anna chattily explains. "Some suns have planets, and some of _those_ planets may well have people."

"Is there a Baker Street on one of them, too?" Sherlock chides from his chair across the room. His daughter is nonplussed.

"No," Anna answers. Her eyes narrow in a lilliputian scowl; plainly she is used to her father's teasing.

"No?" Sherlock parrots. Mycroft rolls his eyes as his little brother flexes his fingers below his chin, cheerfully goading his progeny on. "Isn't it possible? Given the extraordinary number of stars and suns and planets?"

Anna, budding scientist that she is, considers this eventuality. "Possible," she replies. "But unlikely."

As they watch, the shiny tablet screen displays a smiling cartoon face upon a copper-bright star. The happy orb gives a happy wave to the non-existent, though presumably happy, camera, and the galactic tour presses on.

"Red giant," Anna points out. "They're very fat suns–"

"Oh, Mycroft knows _all_ about fat sons–"

A single, _dedicated_ glare.

"–eventually, they eat up everything around them up, and collapse in a huge explosion!" She smacks her hands together, demonstrating the effect. Mycroft nods in approval. Already a superior intelligence for a six-year-old; he'll have to look into an opportunity at CERN for her. The Swiss are notably malleable—A position could easily be arranged once she finishes an MSc. Cambridge, certainly. Perhaps, Oxford, if the old buffoon Maxwell retires. The _Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule_ in Zürich would be acceptable, of course, but she will be close with her mother and sibling. Possible she'll want to remain closer to home–

Anna huffs in annoyance at the cartoonish depiction of a cheerful white dwarf star. Her large brown eyes flash up at him in consternation as she very seriously imparts, "Stars do not have faces. This app is for children."

"Some children find it amusing, I expect."

"Stupid," Anna says, flippant. Mycroft's mouth twitches in delight. How _extraordinarily_ like her father she is.

"'Mike coffed," his four-year-old ("Five next month!") nephew chirps (_charming, if inaccurate, pronunciation. Slight speech impediment? No, missing teeth_) from beside his pile of Legos on the floor. "D'you know about dagons?"

"Jack," Anna sighs, an imperious quality reminiscent of Mummy in her voice. "_Dragons_ are _not_ real."

"Don't be silly, Anna," Sherlock says. "Of course dragons are real." He drums his fingers along the chair impishly. "Mycroft showed me satellite images of them just last week."

"Really?" Jack asks, badly managing the 'r' "Where?"

_Must you, brother mine?_ Mycroft says with a look. "Southern Turkmenistan," he tells his nephew, who nods in understanding.

"Ash-" Jack enunciates, reciting the major city of the region. "-ba-ghat."

"Yes, excellent. Your geography is immensely improved. Well done. You shall not require a globe for Christmas, I see."

Jack blinks his blue eyes, expression blank. "Dunno what's a globe."

"Different times, Mycroft," Sherlock says. Turning to his son he explains, "A globe is just like Google Maps, except far more useless. It does not register changes in regional or international delineation, and lacks satellite filters, street level imaging and scale functionality. You can, however juggle it on your head like a football, which, admittedly is harder to do with a mobile. So, not completely useless, globes."

It is a testament to Molly Hooper, Mycroft thinks, that his niece and nephew seem to indulge Sherlock's cheek without actively encouraging it. At present, they are well-behaved enough (Mostly well-behaved. He was once privy to one of Anna's tantrums; the event caused more vivid flashbacks to Sherlock's youth than he realized was possible), and regard him with a vaguely amused indifference. He is uncertain how long this will last.

Jack blinks slowly, turning back to him and asks: "What was the dagons–" A glance at Anna. "Dragons doing?"

"_Were _doing," Anna corrects.

"Anna," her father tuts in warning. _No one likes a know-it-all_, he seems to indicate; Mycroft finds himself tempted to snort.

"They were smuggling copious amounts of heroin," he replies, a small grin belaying his good humor.

"Not good," Jack says, grave.

"Very not good."

"Drugs. Stupid," Anna mutters again. She looks at her uncle with the same critical eye she had for animated substellar objects.

Jack, so often the brighter, sillier, more animated of the pair, says with great determination: "When I'm big, I'm going to catch the dagons."

"_DRA_-gons, Jack!" Anna exclaims, exasperated.

"_RAWR,_" Jack screeches, very much antagonized by his sister's constant corrections. He turns on her with a ferocious expression and hands held like claws.

"Anna, for God's sake, don't badger him!" Sherlock says, curt. "He'll say it right when he has front teeth again. Need I remind you whose fault it is that he is currently without?"

"No," she pouts, glaring.

"Also, you really must stop doing that. Go to the hospital with your mother if you want to see the inside of a human body."

She sinks further into the couch and Mycroft's side, turning back to her screen. "No," she says in disgust, apparently finished with her flirtation with human anatomy. "Do _not_ want."

Mycroft looks to his brother. "Well, if there were ever any doubt as to their paternity..."

"Hardly," Molly Hooper laughs, coming through the kitchen door. She sets her things on a chair and smiles warmly at the scene that awaits her.

"Mummy!" her children cry. She bends down to scoop up her son and settles on the couch on Anna's far side, leaning over to kiss her daughter's head. "What are you up to, my scurrilous scoundrels?"

"I showed Mycroft my astronomy app," Anna announces with great pride. She points to the tablet, indicating the video they had watched. _Obsessed_, Molly mouths at at him over Anna's head, rolling her eyes.

"There are _dragons_ in Ashbaghat," Jack says, very pleased to have managed to pronounce it appropriately.

"Well, we shall have to enlist a dragonslayer to look into the matter," she replies, very seriously. Jack nods gravely in response. He curls against her shoulder, and Molly gives Mycroft a pointed look. _I know why you're here_, it says.

"My best is overseeing," Mycroft reports. "I'm sure she'll have quite the story to tell when she returns."

"Speaking of stories…" Molly presses her face to Jack's. Their noses scrunch in precisely the same way. "You know what time it is."

"Come, Jack," Anna says, holding out her hand, chastened by her scolding. Or perhaps only better behaved now that the true household disciplinarian has returned. Sherlock Holmes may be the world's only consulting detective and a great weapon against criminal forces across the planet, but at Baker Street, Molly Hooper reigns supreme. The full weight of the British Government had done little to move her in the past.

Anna helps him down from the couch. "You can pick our book tonight."

"Can we do Peter Pan?" her brother asks.

"Oh, yes!" she agrees, tugging him along. "I get to read Wendy's parts. You will be Peter. Daddy will be Captain Hook," his niece decides with the utmost authority. "If we _had a dog_," Anna says, raising her voice pointedly, "she could sit at foot of the bed like Nana." They offer their uncle heartfelt hugs and kisses goodnight before Anna takes Jack's small hand and helps him climb the steps to the third floor rooms they share.

"Be careful with him," Molly calls. She glances to Sherlock. "He can't afford to lose any more teeth or it'll be months before we'll understand him," she mutters. "And no sword-fighting, please!"

"They like pirates," Sherlock explains, smug.

"They like adventure, I think," Molly corrects. "Can't imagine why."

"Genetic predisposition," Sherlock postulates.

Mycroft sets Anna's abandoned tablet on the coffee table. "Highly possible. Certainly you crave the adrenaline rush, and their mother is hardly the average woman."

"Thank you, I think," Molly smirks, making her way to the kitchen, setting a kettle on the range.

"However, let us not fool ourselves. You actively _nurture_ it in them as well," he clucks at his brother. "_Dragonslayin_g, and all. Hoping to make it the family business?"

Sherlock steeples his fingers, ignoring him. "What did Andrea find?"

He leans forward, settles his elbows on his knees. "Contacts on the ground all point to orchestration by a Russian crime syndicate. Their operations go through Bucharest and Amsterdam, but invariably lead to London. And to one Yuri Komarovskii. Operates out of a flower shop in SoHo. We'd like you to investigate from this end. It would be considered a great favor to king and country."

"Fine," Sherlock says without interest. "Send me the details tomorrow. Everything Andrea has. Good night, brother mine. I have Lost Boys to fight. You may let yourself out." With that he bounds up the stairs to the children's room where he is met by shrieks and belly laughs.

Mycroft rises to his feet, ready to depart. And yet he hesitates. How strange, this flat. How much has been altered since John Watson first arrived in his brother's life and changed it, forever. His eyes are drawn to the many details surrounding him. The evidence of said change. The skull on the mantle, now nestled amid a West Ham supporter's scarf. The bison horns on the wall adorned with a bright pink feather boa, a tricornered hat hanging from one end. Jack's football and Legos; Anna's scuffed trainers and tablet. Between the kitchen and door to the landing, a precisely measured wall chart marking their developmental metrics, and the progression of years.

He considers every one of the photographs Molly Hooper has no doubt taken, framed and cherished over that same period. How dutifully she has recorded her children's lives thus far; the large moments, the very small. Holidays, first days of school, meeting the King; Jack mesmerized by a massive Underground map, head tipped to one side; Anna walking determinedly along the wall outside the Natural History museum, her hand outstretched, but not touching Mary Watson's; Jack and Anna, eyes closed, doing their best hands-folded-beneath-the-chin Mind Palace imitation; the pair of them fast asleep in their father's arms, Sherlock studying their faces in wonder. Each another unremarkable moment, another unremarkable day, in their aberrant and unfathomable lives.

"Wild things, they are," Molly says, her voice a happy sigh as she too examines the photo Mycroft is fixed upon. In it, she has tucked the end of her hair beneath her nose, giving her the appearance of having an impressive mustache—a joking nod to the many disguises his brother employs in his profession. Anna, deerstalker atop her head, does the same with her own black locks, stroking one curling end with devious smile. In his small fist, Jack holds another bunch of his mother's long hair, and laughs uproariously as he makes a mustache of his own from it.

Twelve years ago he offered Molly Hooper an end of her financial worries if only she would spy on his brother. She had walked out without saying so much as a word. He had, then, underestimated her. As so many foolishly had, not least of all the father of her children.

"They are extraordinary," he says.

"They're Holmeses," Molly answers, wry. "Genius rather comes with the territory."

"I don't mean in an intellectual capacity alone. They are charming. Kind. Generous." Here he pauses. "Loving, even. Especially to one another. Much of the time, anyway."

"When they aren't fighting like cats and dogs," she smiles, but looks to him with a question in her features. Understandable; he is not typically one to linger, less still one to lapse into sentiment. And yet, he feels to compelled to express...How to say it? How to explain that his little brother, who had been so lost, for so long – has found a kind of peace with her. At long last.

"Molly," Mycroft broaches. It comes off a bit awkward; slow. He is unaccustomed, somehow, to addressing her directly. This, despite his knowledge of her existence in his brothers life for well over a decade. "We have not always seen eye to eye," he begins. "Nor do I suspect we shall ever be…_friends_. But I feel a profound obligation to thank you," he says. He chooses his words with care.

"For a night minding the scoundrels?" she jokes, attempting at levity.

He smiles thinly. "For this life; for these children. What you've given Sherlock is..." He pauses, searches for the appropriate term. How ill-suited they all seem. "'_The still point of the turning world_,'" he says, at last.

Molly shakes her head, lowers her gaze. When she looks up, toward the stairs and the room above – to her children, her partner – her face is beatific: Bright, full of joy and love and gratitude. She is, in such moments, exceedingly beautiful. In only a few rare and precious moments, over many years, has he borne witness to this— the depth of her emotional capacity, writ large there in the curve of mouth and in the sparkling of her eyes. It is merely a glimpse; an insubstantial, momentary scrap of insight into the deep and fathomless ocean of feeling Sherlock has for her.

"Mycroft," she says, shaking her head. "He gave this life to _me_."

He lays a hand on her arm. "And I assure you, Molly Hooper, that although Sherlock Holmes took a flat in Baker Street some years before you came to live here—Well," he pauses. "Suffice it to say, very little of the home it is now is my brother's doing."

He straights, folds his hands before him. "I believe I am in unique position to say – with confidence, I might add – that you satisfy some ineffable longing that he has gone without for much of his life. Largely my doing, I think. Had I been a different man – a better man, perhaps – more encouraging..."

He contemplates certain possibilities, finds them tragic. "Well. It may not have taken him quite so long to find his way to you." He doffs his umbrella on his arm. It is time to take his leave. "I apologize for the delay."

Leaning in, he lays a brief kiss upon her cheek. The look upon her face as she considers him is at once kind, gentle, bemused by this outpouring of of emotion from him, but also deeply sad. No matter; it is of little consequence.

As he takes to the stairs, he hears her soft voice once more.

"Mycroft," Molly Hooper says. "You may not consider us to be friends. But never doubt—we are _family_." Her cheeks dimple with that secret smile. She gives him a final glance, then pads up the steps toward her children.

Standing in half-light, Mycroft Holmes listens as voices raised in laughter fall upon his wanting ears and the silence of the landing below.

* * *

_The trilling wire in the blood_  
_Sings below inveterate scars_  
_Appeasing long forgotten wars._  
\- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets


End file.
